This weeks project is a Rustic Driftwood Kitchen Island that I build
using wood that I found on the beach after Tropical Storm Debby. I used a
splash of blue that I painted on the bottom to give the piece some
color. The woodworking plans I got for this project were from
http://ana-white.com/ blog. She has really great and simple woodworking
projects and woodworking plans. Continue reading down below :)

Creating the Rustic Kitchen Island from Reclaimed Wood

So what's up guys!
Welcome to this week's project on BeachBumLivin where on this week I'm going to
show you how I turn this pile of driftwood I had collected from the beach after
the tropical storm came through and how I was able to transform it into this cool
looking old rustic kitchen island. So stay tuned and I'm going to show you how
I got it done.

All right, this week's project was uh...a ton of fun you know, I
had always wanted to build something and I just never have up until a few weeks
ago I was able to get this whole pile of wood that I had collected from the
beach which was just some awesome wood. I knew I wanted to build something with
it I just didn't know what. So what I ended up doing was going to this blog that
I had previously found before that was really informative and it’s this lady
and her name is Ana White. She just has a lot of do-it-yourself projects on her
blog and she has this section where she actually designs a lot of her projects
and so she has these detailed instructions with measurements and everything
you'll need on it. So I knew that would be a good place to start because her
designs are really simple and I knew with the wood I had I knew I couldn't
build something really complicated because it was really rustic and old. So it
needed to be somewhat simple. I went there and she actually had a design that I
guess one of our friends posted from her blog onto her site and it was from old
paint designs. It was just this rustic kitchen island, which they had built
with reclaimed wood as well and it just looked awesome and I knew the wood that
I had would look great in this project. So that's the one I decided on. On her
blog she these really detailed instructions that I was able to print out and it
has the tools your going to need, the material you'll need to buy, and the
cutlass which is what you will cut down the material you know into it's each
part of the project and then you'll basically just kind of piece it together.
So printed it out, decided on what wood I was going to want to use on of the
pile of wood I had, kind of cleaned it up, cut everything down to the exact specifications
that she had in her instructions, and then I basically just pieced it together.
It ended up being really simple and overall it was a lot of fun and I really
enjoyed it. At the end I really had a feeling of accomplishment when I was done
because I took this wood I found, didn't pay anything for it, and was able to
build something you know from it. Which I just thought was awesome. So it
turned out great and I was really you know how to uh... had a lot of fun with
this project and I hope I can do some more like this. So stay tuned and lets go
ahead and get this thing started.

Okay, I'm ready to get started on this
project the first thing I wanted to do was go and get all the tools I’m going
to need. So what I got out was I have a miter saw, sander, circular saw, cordless
drill, a power plainer, a Kregs pocket hole jig, and a few knick knack tools
that I'm going to need. Most importantly I have the instructions. I went ahead
and selected some of the better pieces that I’ll need and this is just all the
wood that's going to be necessary for building this kitchen island.

So I have
that out and to get started the first thing I'm going to want to do is go ahead
and cut down all the pieces that I'm going to need for the project. Okay, so I
just finished cutting the all the boards down into the exact length that were
specified in the directions but I wanted to show you this part real quick before
I start assembling everything. It calls for basically a notch to be cut into
the legs to allow these two by four supports to fit down in nicely so it'll be
flush once it's cut out. What I plan on doing is, I actually saw a video on Ana
Whites blog, which explains how to do this. I'm going to use a circular saw and
just cut a few strips in here to allow me to be able to notch out the pieces and
it will have a nice groove cut in here once I'm done. I'm going to show you
guys how to do that real quickly. It calls for it to be an inch and a half deep
and on these circular saws it shows the depth of it. So I have it set to a inch
and a half and now I know when I start cutting it's only going to go down a
inch and a half and allow enough to be cut out to where this two by four will
fit nicely in here.

Okay, so I finished notching the legs out and as you can
see it's just going to give it a really nice flush look. So pretty much all I
have left to do was to start assembling all the pieces that I cut which should
be pretty easy I mean once a get things cut and it's kind of right it should be
like piecing a puzzle together so uh... So I finished putting the lower part of
the legs which was the part right just notched out that little section where I
was able to slide the two by four in flush which that's pretty simple to attach
once you have those little notches cut out but the upper part I wanted to show
you guys how I was going to do this. As you can see it just fits in and is flush
and there's no really go way to screw this in unless you wanted to use huge
screws and go from the back side of the post but it will just have this ugly
screw head exposed on the outside of your project so that's not really the
route I want to go.

So what I have Is this Kreg pocket hole kit and what it is it
comes with a couple of things but this is the main component that's in it and
what it is you set this to whatever width your wood stock is and you can see
how it's going to allow you to drill nice angles holes. It just set you up to
where you can be consistent drilling your holes. It gives you a nice angled
hole so that when you attach this right here you have a nice hole to be able to
drill in with your screw and attach this and your screw head will be nicely
hidden. Okay, so you use this little collar that comes with your kit and you
set it to the depth that you want it to stop at on your drill bit and you can
see how it's going to only go to this depth, you attach that, I have the Kreg
pocket hole attached. So as you can see it gives you a nice angled
hole so now when you go to attach it your screw will go in and it will have
that nice hidden look to it.

So okay, I've completed the bottom portion of the
project the next step is going to be to build the top shelf and then the bottom
shelf. Okay, I've just finished putting on the top and this thing turned out better
than I expected you know I because I was kind of hesitant, I mean that the
plans that I printed off were really simple and straight forward so I knew that
part was going to be easy, it was working with the driftwood that I collected I
wasn't to sure how all that was going to piece together but it came out great
and I couldn't be happier with it. So it's pretty much complete and the only
thing that I have really left to do is, and if it works I think it'll be a
really neat idea. I had also found this driftwood stick when I was getting this
wood and the idea I have for it is to maybe using some wood dowels drill this
out on each end and then drill through this face plate a hole for the dowel to
fit as well. This will sit here in the front of this because this is a kitchen
island you know you can kind of picture this facing towards the inside of the
kitchen towards the sink and with this hanging here you'll be able to hand your
dish towels and stuff like that over it. I just think it will be functional and
kind of cool looking. So if I can figure out how to make this work I think it
will be a nice addition to the already cool looking island. That's what I'll
try and do next. All right, I just got done putting on this handrail thing. I'm
not even sure what you would really call it, towel hanger thing. What I ended
up doing was using that driftwood stick that I had and I used these wooden
dowels and what I did it was on the back side of the stick I just used one of
these drill bits that drills a hallow hole all the way through but I didn't go
all the way through. I went about halfway so that this dowel could fit about
halfway through the stick and then on this face board I drilled it all the way
through. Overall, it ended up being a lot more difficult than I initially
thought it would be. Just tying to line up everything and get it perfect and
everything because this is the only stick I had so I only had one shot at
drilling so if I screwed it up I didn't know what I was going to do. I'm happy
with it. I think it turned out really good. I think its pretty cool.

I'm done
with the island but I wanted to add something to it. If you can picture this
being in a kitchen, this side will be facing inside the kitchen towards the
sink and you turn around and here's the island and you have the wash rags
hanging from this but on the back side instead of having some bar stools or
something to be able to sit there and maybe have breakfast or whatever. I still
have a little bit of wood left over. So what I plan on doing is using this big
piece right here and actually building a bench to go along with the island. I'm
going to use the same style as I did with the island as far as the four by four
post as legs. I think it will look really neat with it. That's what I'm going
to tackle next.

All right, I'm done! Turned out awesome! I appreciate you guys
checking out the video and I hope you liked it. If you did, show me some love and
make sure you hit that like button. Also don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
Guess I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for checking out BeachBumLivin!

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